There’s a button on the steering wheel of the Mercedes-AMG EQE53 4Matic+ SUV, as it’s formally called, that couldn’t be more inviting to push. A little wavy icon denotes AMG’s take on performance electric vehicle sound.
In combustion AMGs, this exact same button displays a little tailpipe graphic and opens a mechanical valve in the exhaust. In the case of anything with glorious AMG’s biturbo 4.0-litre V8, pushing it is a joy.
In the EQE53’s case, it hints that the engineers have cooked up some EV aural titillation. Given engine sound has been such a big part of the AMG formula for so long, you could be forgiven for having moderately high expectations.
BMW, after all, took synthetic EV noise so seriously that it hired famed soundtrack composer Hans Zimmer (who did quite a good job).
Meanwhile EV provocateurs Hyundai have fully captured the curiosity of the performance EV world with fully functioning fake gears and an ICE-like soundtrack for its fascinating Ioniq 5 N.
Unfortunately, while we’ve built up the EQE53’s artificial noise here, it’s an anti-climax. AMG’s take on performance EV sound is not to our liking, meaning this will be an AMG bereft of any noise histrionics for now.
It’s so forgettable, in fact, the steering wheel button makes you grateful there’s a quick and easy way to turn it off.
Like the GLE is the SUV version of the E-Class sedan, the EQE SUV is intended to be the high-riding version of the EQE sedan – the sort-of electric E-Class. A single EQE53 variant has arrived in Australia priced from $191,900 before on-road costs.
As ever with electric vehicles, mechanical details are intelligibly few. Two electric motors provide all-wheel-drive and pair with a reasonably large 90.6kWh (usable) lithium-ion battery pack.
Range is a claimed 485km NEDC, which translates to a roughly, fairly unremarkable 412km using the more reliable WLTP measure.
Outputs are a Teutonic 460kW/950Nm, enough to hurtle the big, egg-shaped EQE53 from zero to 100km/h in just 3.7 seconds.
Stump up $7400 for the optional AMG Dynamic Plus package and a bit of software adds another 45kW/50Nm to the party – for a very hearty 505kW and 1000Nm.
That drops the 0-100km/h time to a claimed 3.5 seconds – truly scintillating for this type of vehicle.
Once you’re out of electrons, the maximum DC charge-rate is 170kW, permitting a 10-to-80 percent top-up in 32 minutes. That extends to six-and-a-half hours on a 22kW home charger, the EQE53 generously compatible with the fastest AC charger you can currently get.
Jump inside and you’re greeted with the smell of bountiful Nappa leather and, visually, Merc’s new ‘MBUX Hyperscreen’ – which sounds like one giant, expansive screen, but it’s in fact three large, clearly separate screens hewn into the dash.
It gives the interior the vibe of a giant smartphone. There’s also a massive head-up display in the event that you’d still want more visual stimulation.
In the back, there’s plenty of space with a near fully flat floor granting tonnes of foot-room and knee-room even for adults, as well as the luxury of quad-zone air-conditioning.
Back in the comfortable front row, even despite its array of dashboard screens the EQE53 remains reasonably conventional to start by modern EV standards.
For luggage, while there’s no under-bonnet storage, the boot is a decently sized 520 litres with a 40/20/40 split-fold.
However, like many new EVs, get a flat and you’ll be reaching for a can of goo – there’s no spare tyre.
Thumb a system ‘on’ button and there’s a brooding, electronic pulse to signal the vehicle is activated. The 12.3-inch passenger screen flashes up a crisp “130 Years Motorsport” graphic which is a nice touch.
Driver visibility is okay excepting an unusually sturdy A-pillar. But even by electric car standards – an inherently smooth and quiet type of vehicle – it takes just a few hundred metres to notice the EQE53 is exceptionally refined and effortless to drive.
There’s a sumptuous, liquid-like quality to the air-suspended ride, even on 22-inch wheels. The throttle calibration is one of the best we’ve felt on an EV – beautifully smooth yet plenty responsive.
At car park speeds, the rear-axle steering is also so aggressive, many would-be three-point turns are instead quickly executed U-turns. This is a very easy car to drive.
As speeds increase there is a bit of a harder edge from those big 22s – especially on rougher roads – but the EQE53 is never uncomfortable. We also didn’t love the brake pedal calibration; this is an EV you’ll get used to using in its maximum brake regeneration mode, just to avoid having to experience the slightly software-infected brake pedal feel.
Curiously (and an oft-unquoted performance EV stat), up to 260kW is recuperable when decelerating in the EQE53 – pretty good by performance EV standards. For Porsche’s Taycan Turbo S, surely a performance EV benchmark in many ways, it’s 290kW.
Under brakes, and at almost all other times, one thing you’re constantly experiencing with the EQE53 is a feeling of weight. The EQE53’s 2690kg lends it an omnipresent density which never really goes away. Not that it’s necessarily a problem, of course.
One way of making this feeling vaporise is putting your right foot flat into its carpet – something that must be beheld.
As you’d expect, the EQE53 is staggering fast in a straight line with tremendous, near-silent acceleration – delivered in a way that somehow spares you the unpleasant, disorientating explosiveness of other high-performance EVs.
And that’s just when it’s left in Comfort mode, which limits power to 368kW presumably as to not scare witless anyone who’s never driven an SUV with Porsche 911 Turbo-like grunt.
To get the full 505kW you need to engage Sport Plus mode and use the launch control with the Boost function (a process that seems almost a safety precaution) and after a day spent pootling about at lower speeds, the EQE53 suddenly reveals a new level of acceleration like it’s been flicked by the silent hand of god.
There’s even a tiny bit of front wheel spin just to break up the otherwise clinically clean traction. While we didn’t get the chance to strap on some timing equipment to test its claimed 0-100km/h, subjectively this is an astonishingly rapid car.
As for how it fares when the road bends, sadly our drive south from Melbourne’s CBD encountered rains so heavy we started to wonder if we’d be testing the EQE53’s buoyancy. Its cabin is a cosseting place, though the experience at the helm is overwhelmingly numb.
When we arrived at the designated winding road, Arthur’s Seat on the Mornington Peninsula, the road was so soaked there wasn’t much opportunity to see how 2690kg, active anti-roll bars and half an Energizer warehouse of volts all gelled together.
Although we can say traction is immense out of tighter corners, and that the EQE53 turns in with the kind of eagerness you’d expect of a vehicle with rear-axle steering. We’ll have to reserve judgement on the EQE53’s ultimate dynamics – including its claimed rear-drive personality – until we can get it on a dry stretch of familiar winding road.
But there’s certainly not a lot of driver interaction that one might otherwise reasonably expect from an AMG machine.
Back in Comfort mode, there’s time to ponder the big question with the EQE53 SUV: whether buyers of something like the six-cylinder GLE53 might be tempted by this curious new electric offering.
While it’s more refined, more comfortable and obviously in another league for acceleration – the GLE53’s 0-100km/h time is more like 5.3 seconds – range and resale will surely be concerns.
A GLE53’s 85-litre fuel tank grants range in the vicinity of 900km, exceeding 1000km on the freeway.
The EQE53 might do 475km on its best day, and closer to 400km at other times. After a day’s worth of testing and motorway driving, our car was displaying 180km of range from 45 percent remaining battery capacity.
A manufacturer can’t control residual value, of course, but if we were purchasing an EQE53 SUV we’d be giving some thought to what it might be worth, versus a combustion equivalent, after your period of ownership.
Practical concerns aside, what we’ve lost with a combustion purr or burble in the move to electric we’ve clearly gained in straight-line performance.
Buy an EQE53 and there is the all-powerful knowing that you’re driving something that’s more accelerative than almost everything else on the road – and it’s certainly not a car that looks like it’ll do 0-100km/h in 3.5 seconds.
Just watch out for that fake noise button on the steering wheel.
